Iran says it will build more nuclear plants in area hit by earthquake

April 10, 2013: Survivors mourn for their loved ones who were killed in Tuesday's earthquake in front of the ruins of their houses, at the city of Shonbeh, southern Iran. A 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed dozens and injured hundreds more in a sparsely populated area in southern Iran on Tuesday, Iranian officials said, adding that it did not damage a nuclear plant in the region.
(AP/Fars News Agency)

A day after an earthquake rattled the area containing Iran’s only nuclear power plant, the country announced that it plans to build more plants in the same place.

The Russian power company that helped build the nuclear plant says its operations were unaffected. But the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization told state TV hours after the earthquake that more reactors would be built near Bushehr, Reuters reports.

Iran has repeatedly ignored safety concerns about housing a nuclear facility in the area, which is highly seismic.

Last week, a report by U.S. think tanks the Carnegie Endowment and the Federation of American Scientists said the Bushehr reactor sits at the intersection of three tectonic plates, Reuters reports.

In 2003, an earthquake in Bam, which is about 600 miles east of Bushehr, killed more than 25,000 people.